Bunking off.....

Bunked off work yesterday and visited Batsford Arboretum. What an inspiration of colours, and also what a marvel of ingenuity and the variety of nature! I was particularly taken with a plant called Euonymus Oxyphyllus. It seems to have fun at every stage! I admired the cylindrical pink baubles, marked out on the exterior into enticing segments, and behold, they open like a paper fortune teller to reveal four vibrant orange seeds.

Perhaps this is why the plant appeals so strongly to me? It connects to the playfulness of my brush strokes, and the joy of the selection of colours. Like the design of the plant, my various methods used in my work, all come together to make the individual piece.

There are few flowers at Batsford. Being an arboretum, it’s all about trees, with a Japanese flavour. But allow me to share these flowers, a reward placed at the finale of a circuit walk. Terrific design, and four of the “blooms” in the stages of passing on…..

There’s inspiration for colours, but also in the development of the plants, flowers and trees that forever feed my mind, to the hand, to the brush, to the pots of dyes and to the fabric.

so, to sum up…….it’s never a wasted day to “play hooky “ and especially now. Take yourself off if the idea comes to you and breath in all the wonderfulness out there. And keep an eye for my latest designs and colours - you’ll learn to see how they relate to what I do, what I see!